Speed matters. That is a fundamental fact of the construction business. In my years as an architect, I don’t recall ever meeting a single client who said, “It doesn’t matter when my building gets completed.” Every project has deadlines, and every deadline is important. If the owner is financing the work through a construction loan, then the faster the building is completed, the sooner they can complete the loan. If the owner is a school district or an expanding business, then there may be hard deadlines that must be met, such as the day that the new school needs to be open for students or when the business owner needs the space for additional equipment or employees.

What does the word “Integrated” in “Integrated Project Delivery” (IPD) mean? While there is no single, authoritative definition of IPD, interpretations can be taken from the IPD report published by McGraw-Hill Construction and AIA California Council, along with looking up the definition of the word “integrated” on dictionary.com:

in•te•grat•ed [in-ti-grey-tid] adjective: combining or coordinating separate elements so as to provide a harmonious, interrelated whole.

AEC professionals have a new technology platform to support the old-fashioned notion of planning ahead. Building Information Modeling (BIM) is bringing a sea change to the industry's workflow by facilitating a previously impossible degree of planning, coordination, and communication.

Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) is the new paradigm in design and construction. At its core, IPD means bringing all of the parties in a typical construction project—owner, architect, and builder—together as early as possible in a more robust partnership than is traditionally seen in construction. A true IPD partnership involves changing how the project team is configured, how contracts are written, how risk is shared, how decisions are made, and the tools that are used to communicate information. Today some projects are implementing IPD in its pure form, while others are making incremental steps towards it.